Burning Lies
by Phoenix1337
Summary: War takes its toll on everyone. Starscream is no exception. He thinks about one of the defining points of every war.


_In a time of war, when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies._

Lies are powerful, more so than any one being could ever imagine. A little white lie is never such. It holds millions of twists and turns until even the creator is trapped in its deadly embrace. It slowly suffocates and kills from the inside, leaving a husk behind, a husk capable only of telling more lies, for that is all they know. It would have been so much easier to tell the truth, but once the lie has been created, it can never die. It can be forgotten, but the scars will be there forever. Nothing can erase those scars.

They were wrong, so very wrong. They had killed, believing they were freeing others and saving those they love, but they were only hurting themselves. They had been lied to so many times that the truth seemed so far-fetched, so unreal. This war had gotten out of hand, and I had simply watched it happen. Now I was caught in the web of deception.

The Autobots believed that the Decepticons were murderers, sparkless killers, ones who enjoy seeing the terror in their victim's optics. We are. It is the reason behind the murder that they have mistaken. We do what we must to survive. The Autobots are after us, killing for false truths. We Decepticons are not at fault. We may be murderers, insane and bloodthirsty, but it is because we were forced to become those.

We destroyed a city, but only because it was a high-security prison, filled with rapists and molesters alike. None of the Autobots, save the High Council, knew this. The High council lied to them, and The Autobots destroyed Vos in revenge. Revenge for something that never happened.

My home. I had watched it fall from the sky and burn on the ground. Everyone I knew and loved had been murdered, all on the account of a lie. I had searched so long for the truth, and I had discovered so many things that left me sick, sick to the core. My entire existence had been twisted and warped, my people corrupted and lost, someone dying in every war. This was the result of one lie. One. Simple. Lie.

I myself had told so many lies my head spun, and I regretted all of them. They filled me with guilt and shame, for my lies had always ended in disaster. There was a way to end this Primus-forsaken war. It was called truth. Was. I didn't think that truth existed anymore. Not here. It could be somewhere, but there was no truth left on either side. There were just lies, mind-twisting, corruptive, hated lies. That was all our world had become.

And yet, even when it did not, truth existed. I wished so badly that this entire war, everything that had happened, was just a lie, a nightmare, and I would wake up and see my brother and my creator and my sire and Vos, unharmed, but that was not so. This entire world of lies was true. Real. And I hated it. Loved it. Despised it. Lived it.

I believed that everything was set in place, that every action you make had a very specific consequence. I believe that our future is planned out for us in an endless number of ways, depending on what actions we, or someone else, make now. I often wonder what my other future would have been like, the one where the Autobot High Council had not lied to the rest of the Autobots. Would there have been peace, or would the High Council have found something else to lie about?

There were too many what ifs, too many different scenarios that would never be true, too many lies and not enough truths. I supposed it was this way because truth is the first casualty in war. When you fight, you deny everything: religion, love, compassion, fear, courage… everything. The only thing that exists when you fight is you and your enemy, and the weapons you kill them with. Nothing else, except the lies we shout and the lies we think, and the lies we hear.

War is an ugly thing, but a lie is even uglier. We can sometimes protect ourselves from war, but lies are sometimes the hardest things to protect ourselves against. They are everywhere, impossible to detect until they have already destroyed something. A lie can never, ever, be something good. It is an evil, just like the wars it will eventually cause, be it a physical or emotional war.

You see, war may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, war is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children.

Lies are never necessary. They can kill children as well, in ways that many never suspect. Suicide, for example, from a lie someone else told. Mental breakdowns from guilt. Paranoia. Lies are the worst evil one can think of doing, simply because a lie can turn into so much more, leading to consequences no one can ever expect.

I shutter my optics and slowly enter an uneasy recharge.

There is a truth in lies.

It is called reality.

And it shatters dreams.


End file.
